Eccentric Flower:201012/A Steak Knife Through the Heart
From Eccentric Flower
«December 2010 «Eccentric Flower
A Steak Knife Through the Heart
I lost myself a friend earlier this year by refusing to back away from my statement that I distrust and dislike lawyers ... collectively.
I still refuse to back away from that statement because, as much as it pains me to lose a friend, I consider this a personal, reasoned, well-considered, deeply felt belief, and I can't casually change it just because it offends him. (Asking me to change one of my half-formed, ill-considered beliefs, now, that's another story. Make a good case and I'll change one of those without a moment's notice. But did he really think I had just formed that opinion on the spur of the moment to piss off the lawyers? Did he really think I would have defended it as passionately as I did if it were not a belief I had given serious thought to and had invested heavily in? Would he consider it equally valid to (for example) stop speaking to me because I'm not Catholic?)
Sigh. You can see it still hurts, months later. Sorry about that. And, anyway, it has nothing to do with today's entry - except this:
I am perfectly capable of hating something collectively and yet liking various specific examples of it individually. Several lawyers read these pages on a semi-regular basis, Robert being the most visible and outspoken one. I don't dislike or distrust Robert (although there are days when I want to go slap him, but that's a normal part of our friendship, and the feeling is mutual). There are aspects of his profession I dislike, but I don't stop talking to him just because I don't like some of the things he does. Nor does this stand in the way of my thinking that, collectively, lawyers have done a great deal to degrade the quality of life in the industrialized parts of this planet in the last fifty to seventy years. And I am prepared to defend that conclusion to the death.
Similarly - and here we finally get to the point - I collectively hate salespeople. In fact, I'm prepared to put them collectively neck-and-neck with the lawyers for destroying quality of life. The salespeople make sure we buy lots of crap we don't need and can't afford, and the lawyers make sure that anything good or useful or interesting that crap might actually do is crippled/neutered.
Now, I know one person whom I would describe as a salesperson-by-nature (true salespeople are incapable of turning it off, just like true editors have a very hard time reading anything without mentally editing it). She happens to be running a farm, but she'll always be a salesperson at heart. I love her dearly. And her point of view on sales makes sense, especially when I talk to her about seeing people miss opportunities to actually get their product/service into the hands of people who could actually use it. Her attitude is that there's a lot of good stuff out there which doesn't find a good home simply because the person who makes/owns the stuff has no idea how to market it. She's probably right.
I concede readily that the world needs salespeople - to a point. I grant that it is often extremely difficult to connect the shiny object with the audience that would like that shiny object, and that connecting those two dots is what the best, and the most necessary, salespeople do.
But there also seem to be a whole lot of people who are doing sales because they have to or because they have some misguided impulse to (but not the spirit of the thing). And there are a lot of people doing sales whose apparent goal is to connect the product/service with people who don't really need it or appreciate it.
In other words, I'm okay with sales when it serves to connect a genuine product with a genuine need; when the two jigsaw pieces actually fit together. I am not okay with sales when its goal is, "Let's get as many people to buy this product as possible regardless of whether it suits them." And I'd say that latter is at least 80% of retail-level sales and as much as half of higher-level sales.
Some of my attitude comes down to personality and habit, and so your mileage may vary. I am the type of person who never wants a retail salesbeing to cross my path. Ever. I don't have any questions, because if I'm planning to buy it, I likely know more about the product than you ever will. I don't need your assistance. I don't want to hear your recommendations, which are probably based more on what you've been told to push this month than my actual needs. I don't want your useless, overpriced service and/or warranty packages. I don't need a salesperson; I need a cashier, and ideally I don't need even that until the exact moment I am prepared to come pay. Leave me alone.
Also (and this will make some enemies, but oh well), I don't especially care if you get a commission, Mr. Salesdude, because I have no respect for your profession; I'm sorry you had to take this job, but, you know, sucks to be you. If it were me I'd be doing something I could respect - which, compared to working sales in a Best Buy would be just about anything, stocking shelves at night in a supermarket, cleaning toilets, even McDonald's would be preferable. (Also, I don't do jobs where my work is based on commission or tips; I want a regular wage that is not tied to whether the customers were in a good mood that day.) If you were genuinely invested in being a salescreature, you would not be working at Best Buy; I know you're doing this because you think it's a job that you can bluff your way through and you don't have to come home smelling of fry grease every night. In short, though it's unfair of me, I have assessed you based on what you are doing for employment and I have decided you come up wanting. If I meet you in some other circumstances I will re-assess and you'll probably come out better, but as long as you're wearing that Best Buy shirt, you are scum of the earth. Now go away. I have been convinced that some of my bichiness in this paragraph is misinformed and unfair, and I agree. See comments. -c
Ahem. Yes, there's a deep well of something here. Sorry. Maybe I was scared by a retail salesclerk while in the womb or something. The thing is, my shopping experience is (ideally) limited to me and the product. The salesclerk is supernumerary to that transaction, and I'm not sure why the salesclerk should get recompensated based on his intruding into a transaction where he wasn't needed in the first place.
On the other hand, if Best Buy had no salesclerks, only cashiers who stayed by their registers at all times, it would be a horrible blow to business for them - I do realize this. Other people seem to want salesclerks, although I suspect that what they actually want is not a salesclerk but a walking information counter. (See, that wouldn't bother me. If you hired people to walk around and explain products and such to people without, you know, actively trying to sell anything, I'd be okay with that.)
Other people seem to want to use salesbeings as a way to help them figure out what they want. I already know want I want. I've used Best Buy here as an example, not just because they are especially odious in so many ways, but because for years now, I have not stepped into a Best Buy without a specific objective - that way I minimize the time I am forced to spend in one. My sorties into Best Buy are always targeted and tactical. I just want to zoom straight to what I want and get out alive without being hassled.
Conversely, when I shop without having any specific objective, I am trying to form opinions on my own and I really don't want some young punk adding his two cents. If I want advice on sound cards, young whippersnapper, I'll go check either the internet (to gather as many divergent reviews as possible) or ask people whose tech cred in that area I actually respect. And if you actually knew more than a few buzzwords about the technology you purport to advise upon, kid, you wouldn't be working the salesfloor in a Best Buy; you'd be on the Geek Squad at the very least, and likely making better, less whimsical money there.
You may deduce that I think that retail sales is the last refuge of the incompetent, and you'd be pretty close to right. I'm sure some people actually do get good at it. But when they do, they move on to bigger fish, and then we get to an entirely different problem.
Did y'all go read the tangential-but-pertinent news item yesterday? The salesforce of the Just Born candy company (originally known only for Peeps but they've been acquiring other candy lines like crazy in recent years, usually marginal stuff that they bought cheap because the brand was dying) didn't get to go to Hawaii for their annual meeting. They didn't make their targets, so they had to meet in Fargo instead.
Now here is the problem: They made a two percent increase in sales this year. They didn't get Hawaii because their target was four percent. Now, to my mind, getting a two percent increase when your big sellers are seasonal and your other lines are marginal (when was the last time you bought any Hot Tamales candies? When was the last time you saw any?) is pretty fabulous. But then, that begs the question: Why must there be an increase in sales at all?
I have never understood why companies (and some individuals, for that matter) so often seem to lack the gene to say "That's good enough." I have never understood why "sales are flat" is seen as the kiss of death. I believe that most things have natural market limits; that it is completely reasonable to say "we are never going to be able to sell this to more than __% of the populace, the rest don't want it and don't need it," and that this is not a problem so long as you are profitable. Just Born is profitable. They will continue to be profitable even if their operation never expands another jot, so long as they keep doing it the way they're doing it now. They have achieved good stasis. Why does no one in industry or commerce anywhere seem to believe there is such a thing as good stasis?
Now, if you have an item which people keep and use for a relatively long period of time, I can see the problem. Car manufacturers, for example, have a real problem, because cars last a long time and in bad economic times people keep their cars even longer. If you have a brand of car which has a fixed niche of 15% of the total US car market, you have a problem, because once you've sold cars to everybody in that 15%, you've now ensured they won't be buying a new car for a while, and even if they'll come back to you loyally to buy their next car, that could be ten years from now. (This is why I suspect that large manufacturers actually have a financial inducement to build in a lack of quality/longevity, because you can make more money selling crap that breaks and needs replacing often.) You could have sold to every one of those 15% and still die from lack of continuing business, because even if your production line is astonishingly efficient, you still have payroll and fixed costs to make every month. It's not hard to get fifteen years out of a Subaru. I don't know how they stay alive, even though they make brilliant sturdy cars and have tremendous customer loyalty.
But candy? If you have 15% of the candy market, that segment is buying your candy over and over. You don't actually need to keep increasing your sales every year.
I do not get the "Always Be Closing" mentality. I think a lot of salespeople have learned this lesson too well; they seem to believe that they will die if they stop swimming, and their bosses reinforce this with "Glengarry Glen Ross" tactics a little too much. (I have worked in close proximity to salesforces four times in my checkered career. In each and every case, their boss verged on sadism. At one place I worked next to the "New Business Development" people. Do you know what NBD is a euphemism for? Cold-calling people; i.e. no lead, they've never heard of us, a salescall with no prior warmup whatsoever. I felt kinda sorry for those people. Anyway, their boss would routinely chew them out, loudly and venomously, in an open-plan office where everyone else for miles could hear them being berated.)
You'll hear salesmen complain about sales being such a cutthroat business, but if they make it up to the managerial desk, what will they do? They'll just perpetuate the culture. And if you ask them they'll say, "Well, we have to be; if we were calm and gentle about it then our cutthroat competitors would just walk all over us."
I didn't have much respect for the arms race either.
Me, I push back when and where I can. I figure the only way the consumer gets a vote in this matter is with purchasing power. If someone tries to sell me something too aggressively (and "too aggressively" is often defined as "dares to speak to me"), I will just walk away from the sale. I figure that it won't make a damned bit of difference - what's one snippy customer vs. your abusive boss? But I can at least register my displeasure.*
The flip side of this is that when I find a good, non-pushy, pleasant salesperson who seems to know how to stay out of my way until and unless I have a genuine question or concern - and they do exist - then I want to give them my business, make sure they get a commission, let them know that they have made my day better. And I do. Unfortunately, again, I don't think it will make any difference - because I know that, behind the scenes, the good salesperson is being berated for not making targets, and the bad salesperson is getting the Cadillac for pushing the product onto a lot of people who didn't want it and didn't need it.
* Once in a great while, I register displeasure directly and verbally. Usually this is a bad idea, but on very rare occasions it can be helpful and constructive. I once told a salesperson who seemed nice but invasive, like an Irish setter puppy: "Look, I'm on the verge of buying about five hundred dollars' worth of equipment from you. If you go somewhere else and don't say a single word to me until I'm ready to purchase, you'll get the commission and we'll both go away happy. If you don't go somewhere else, I'm walking out right now and neither of us will get anything." He went. Smart boy.
I wouldn't have done that if I hadn't thought he was basically nice and well-intentioned. If he'd been an asshole - and so many male salesbeings are - I'd have just walked out and he would never have registered that he was being obnoxious.
I often say that I've cleaned toilets and I've waited tables, and I preferred the former. I disagree with the intensity of your opinion on salespeople, but I've certainly had reason to share it. (And in contrast, what usually irks me is to walk around the sales floor trying to find someone to take my money. Way to save on labor costs, you morons.) I also disagree with your disdain for retail workers, but you're entitled to your irritation. I can't stand stupid people, so you can guess how much I spend in irritation.
Our economy is based on consumerism, from the top to the bottom. Everyone's out to get every last possible dime, out of labor, out of materials, out of consumers. I wish I had a solution, because what we have now is unsustainable.
-- 19:23, 16 December 2010 (GMT)
Well, some of it is that I am also not of a temperament to work with the public, y'know? (Or hadn't you guessed? Heh.) So given a choice between a retail sales job and some utterly menial job that at least doesn't require me to work with the public, I'd choose the latter. (And despite what Nonelvis says, I prefer to believe that the menial jobs are at least as available as the retail sales jobs, if not more so.) So I'm sure that colors my opinion!
-- 19:27, 16 December 2010 (GMT)
1) The parallel case isn't a person who'd "stop speaking to me because I'm not Catholic"; it's someone who'd stop speaking to you because you insisted that a core belief of yours is that Catholics suck.
2) You can make a valid case for why any given group is bad for the world. All groups suck, without exception. This includes all religions, all races, all countries, all professions, all ideological groups. An essential life skill is the ability to get past such valid cases. (People who never develop this ability are generally referred to as "bigots.")
3) What Nonelvis said. It would be lovely if everybody got to choose the jobs best suited for them.
4) "Why does no one in industry or commerce anywhere seem to believe there is such a thing as good stasis?" For this one, I think you need to blame the financial sector. (Yes, the investors suck too.) If you invest in a business as a business, a profitable statis ought to be fine. If you're investing in stocks in hopes of selling them once the stocks are worth more, the only route to that is the company growing and/or getting more profitable.
-- 19:36, 16 December 2010 (GMT)
Sorry, Shmuel, I stick to my guns here - even though many people have called me on this over the years, it's one of the few things I'm never going to retract or repent.
If you stop speaking to me because I believe Jews collectively are evil (which I don't, at least not more than any other organized religion), that's certainly your right, but I will maintain it was you that was being unreasonable, not me - because I wasn't picking on you personally, just a group that you happened to be a member of.
I realize you are going to pick on my lumping these things together into the same order of taxonomy, but I mean this sincerely: I see no difference between a Catholic getting mad at me because I collectively distrust Catholics and a Patriots fan getting mad at me because I collectively distrust Patriots fans, or a member of Local 103 (the thrice-damned electrician's union whom I will continue to hate until the end of days because of their rigged admission process) because I hate Local 103. Or a member of a labor union because I hate labor unions. Or an employee of a particular company because I hate that company. These, to me, are all the same example.
I hate almost all groups; I distrust almost all groups - because I think the worst tendencies of humanity are exacerbated any time we get together and think collectively about anything. Humans are pretty good, on balance, when taken individually; mobs are almost always horseshit. If I pick on one of these various mobs everyone except me has this odd tendency to form/join, you shouldn't rise to the defense of the mob, or be hurt on its behalf; you should instead be glad that I consider you better than the mob you're sticking up for (or I wouldn't be having a discussion with you about it at all).*
* This is assuming you give a bent penny for my opinion of you at all, which, frankly, if you told me you didn't, I'd say that was probably reasonable. You don't have to care whether I respect you. I have to care whether I respect you, though.
Rise up individually, where we can be brilliant and good! Do not attempt to defend any collectives, all of which are suspect to one degree or another!
I have never thought out that preceding paragraph before right this minute, but now that I have done, I realize it is accurate. I simply don't trust groups. Groups always, inevitably, lead to groupthink. Do you not see that I can distrust your membership in a particular group and yet still trust you?
(The corollary of this is that any time my thought processes seem to correspond particularly with a particular group, and I notice, I immediately question my thought processes. My goal is to surround myself with a bunch of people whom I like, and who like me, as individual people, and not because we happen to wear some of the same badges. To this end, I try to avoid wearing any badges if I can possibly help it.)
3) I still say there are always menial jobs for those who will take them.
4) I am perfectly willing to suck the investors into the blame for this, but that leads to my rant about publicly-held corporations and the stock market, and I think I've pissed off more than enough people for the day.
-- 20:02, 16 December 2010 (GMT)
P.S. To my mind, liking the individual but still not liking the group is how one gets past bigotry. Take the gay-rights business. The various restrictions, discriminations, and obstacles thrown in the path of homosexuals in this country are not ever-so-slowly being overcome because one day people wake up, having had an epiphany, and say, "Hey, what was I so scared of about the gays?" No, they happen (as I said the other day) because John down the street is gay and you know him and he's a nice guy. Winning each other over one by one, as individuals, is the way this battle is won; not suddenly coming to some new conclusion about the worth/value of the collective entity. The corollary of that is that the collective entity need not necessarily be embraced. I grew up around Southern Baptists. I also grew up around a number of Southern Baptists who were really nice people. I will always take the time to assess a Southern Baptist individually, to give them a chance. Collectively, their organization is evil and I can't stand it. I see no reason to change this, nor do I see any internal contradiction.
-- 20:10, 16 December 2010 (GMT)
I am apparently not done on this. Sorry. You picked a wound that has been raw ever since Andy left.
Here is the thing: I realize that I should be more sensitive to other people's group affiliations - but it is very, very difficult, because group affiliation is always almost totally meaningless to me. Even if there were a group I'd join (I am the classic example of not wanting to belong to any club that'd have me as a member), my status with that group would be inconsequential to me compared to my status with individual members of that group whose respect mattered to me. The main reason I continue to stay upset about Andy is that his respect, apparently, mattered to me. Losing the individual is very important and shattering to me; pissing off a group, well, big fucking deal. (In fact, yay for pissing off groups! Noble goal that.) What mystifies me - what is hard for me to communicate to and empathize with - is the importance of groups to the rest of you. Do you define yourself by what you belong to?
I would stand up for someone who was being abused if I felt that that person didn't deserve it on a personal level ("Hey, don't pick on him, he's a good guy, you don't know what you're talking about.") But I would never stand up for someone just because we belonged to the same club, whatever that club happened to be. I don't even stand up for family members just because they are related to me; if I speak for them it is because of their own personal merits, not our shared genetic heritage.
I guess what I'm saying is that I'm probably gonna go to my grave not understanding the importance of group membership to most other humans, and it will likely continue to bite me until I die, because I'm not much good at faking it.
-- 20:25, 16 December 2010 (GMT)
Joy:
But, in your comment about knowing individuals fighting the bigotry against the group, you've contradicted yourself, because you've said that knowing the individual doesn't - and if I'm interpreting correctly CAN'T - remove your feelings about the group.
Also, you maybe shouldn't have picked the gay grouping up there, since I assume (but perhaps I am wrong?) that you do not mean to conflate chosen and identity groups here?
-- 20:34, 16 December 2010 (GMT)
I was about to make the same point Joy did. You really don't see there's something wrong with the statement "I like many individual gay people, but the idea of gay people as a group is offputting"? Seriously? Because for one thing, I know you have no problems with gay people, grouped or otherwise, and for another, that's a really fucking offensive statement.
Love,
yer wife.
-- 20:45, 16 December 2010 (GMT)
Hmm. OK, that's a good point and I don't know quite what to do about it. I don't want to be called a bigot but I also can't bring myself to trust any sort of group affiliations; and that includes groups to whom I would normally find myself allied (we're getting to the gay part).
I have reasonably pro-feminist ideology but I distrust the self-identified group "feminists"; I have very pro-gay ideology but I distrust the self-identified "gay" group INSOMUCH AS it represents a party line or an ideological platform. Obviously one does not choose to be gay, and therefore you can't condemn someone for it. This is a given. But there is definitely a "gay ideology" in this country, and when I see it, I find myself asking: How many of you in this group have joined it for reasons I would approve of? I mean, joining for self-defense, that's one thing. Oh, dear. I'm not making this hole any shallower, am I?
OK, let's try my own petard. I believe very strongly in rights for the transgendered/intergendered. I believe in these rights even though I, personally, have been a recipient of very little anti-TG discrimination/hatred (unless you count a couple of isolated incidents of running for my life in heels through dark streets of the French Quarter, and those were a long time ago). Nonetheless I believe that the transgendered should be allowed to live their lives free of discrimination on the basis of their gender status, whatever it is.
HOWEVER - I am STILL, despite all that, deeply suspicious of any whiff of a transgender political agenda, and refuse to join or affiliate with any groups that base their group identity strongly/primarily on transgender status. I guess the point is, I can want TG rights but not necessarily want TG to be the identifying label. I think the problem may be that I am scared of all pigeonholes; I'm worried that if I put on a "I support TG rights" badge that somebody is going to assume that is the defining characteristic of my personality from then on.
Eek. I don't know if that made any sense whatsoever and I suspect it didn't.
-- 20:47, 16 December 2010 (GMT)
Columbina, I think you are approaching the group issue from a wrong end.
But explanation could get long and ugly, so to email it goes.
-- 20:47, 16 December 2010 (GMT)
Iain:
(Substantial comment redacted first because the posting form ate it, and then because I realized that I was about to make the same argument on the affiliation vs individual point that I've made before, and if it didn't make a difference then, it won't now, either. All I'll say on that point is, Robert is apparently an astonishingly tolerant and forgiving person.)
On the original topic, I will admit, the behavior of the candy company is somewhat amazing to me. They're going to spend a hefty sum of money purely to punish people for not being able to increase sales as much as they wanted during the Great Recession, while selling what is clearly an utterly unnecessary good. Granted, they were going to spend an even heftier sum to reward them -- you'd think that sending your sales force to Hawaii would eat up a substantial chunk of that 4%, wouldn't you? -- but still, that sounds like a company that, if you can get away from it, you really should.
(In fact, yay for pissing off groups! Noble goal that.)
No. It isn't. Unless you know what you're doing, to whom you're doing it, why you're doing it, understand what the consequences of doing that will be and are prepared to deal with them, it's pretty much the very definition of an utterly dickheaded move.
I don't know if that made any sense whatsoever and I suspect it didn't.
No, it really didn't.
-- 20:47, 16 December 2010 (GMT)
OK I AM GONNA RETRACT SOMETHING
Several people who don't have commenting abilities here (yet) have pointed out to me that right now, scrambling for menial jobs is just as bad, if not harder, than scrambling for retail sales jobs. So I revoke that part.
I personally would probably either take the dreaded unemployment or starve before taking a retail sales job; that's how strongly I dislike them. But nonetheless I was being overly glib and uninformed there, and I retract that part.
We now return to the regularly scheduled argument.
-- 20:52, 16 December 2010 (GMT)
Unless you know what you're doing, to whom you're doing it, why you're doing it, understand what the consequences of doing that will be and are prepared to deal with them, it's pretty much the very definition of an utterly dickheaded move.
It's a Joan of Arc fantasy. Death to all groups! Fight and die valiantly for the resistance! Storm the barricades! Vive la individualité!
It goes hand-in-hand with a dream of a wonderful, beautiful world where none of us have any group affiliations whatsoever, and when ten thousand of us do the same thing, we do it because we have each decided independently, on our own dime and by our own reasoning, to do that thing.
I can't go any further with this because I am no longer sure the gap can or should be crossed. Perhaps I should go isolate myself as a menace to society or something. I didn't really expect this would get such strong argument as it did, although I suppose that was foolish of me. I guess what it comes down to is that I am as surprised by the strength of your defense of group affiliations as you are surprised by the strength of my vehemence toward them.
-- 21:15, 16 December 2010 (GMT)
I have reasonably pro-feminist ideology but I distrust the self-identified group "feminists"; I have very pro-gay ideology but I distrust the self-identified "gay" group INSOMUCH AS it represents a party line or an ideological platform. Obviously one does not choose to be gay, and therefore you can't condemn someone for it. This is a given. But there is definitely a "gay ideology" in this country, and when I see it, I find myself asking: How many of you in this group have joined it for reasons I would approve of? I mean, joining for self-defense, that's one thing. Oh, dear. I'm not making this hole any shallower, am I?
No, you're not making the hole any shallower. Let's try this in small words:
- No one "joins" the "gay group." You are simply "gay" (or lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, etc.). You may share some political and social views with many other people who are likewise gay, but you are not part of a group of people with uniform opinions. To condemn an entire group as having a "gay ideology" is incredibly, ludicrously offensive, and I'm really kind of getting pissed off at you right now, which should tell you something.
- Now, you *can* join a number of "feminist" groups. However, anyone paying the slightest bit of attention to feminism should know that feminism, like many other large groups, has a number of different and even competing ideologies, e.g., the old "porn hurts women" vs. "porn is women owning their sexuality" debate. You cannot look at someone who calls themselves a "feminist" and assume anything other than the fact that they'd like equal rights for women -- and even that can be debatable, if you've seen some of the people calling themselves "feminist" nowadays.
Seriously, you want to say "I am distrustful of the way people behave in large groups," I don't have a problem with that. When you condemn the entire group to the point of saying no one should ever participate in it, that I do have a problem with.
-- 21:15, 16 December 2010 (GMT)
Then we have a problem. Because that is almost exactly right: While I don't condemn the entire group to the point of saying no one should ever participate in it, I do distrust the entire group to the point of saying that if you participate in it, you are guilty until proven innocent.
I don't even have a basis for beginning to like/trust anyone until I strip away all their group affiliations and see what they are actually like underneath all those banners and signets.
And, if you'll recall, the times we have had the worst arguments have all been because of some group affiliation or another which you cling to (graduates of your college, your political affiliations, et cetera). I am suspicious of each and every one of them without fail.
-- 21:19, 16 December 2010 (GMT)
Iain:
I guess what it comes down to is that I am as surprised by the strength of your defense of group affiliations as you are surprised by the strength of my vehemence toward them.
I am not defending group affiliations, nor am I surprised by the strength of your vehemence. (See the first paragraph of previous comment.)
I am surprised that, after all this time, you do not see that people do not think of certain aspects as group affiliation as such. I am surprised that you do not see that it is very nearly impossible not to see, "I think your profession/group/religion is evil, but you're fine," as "I think you are evil/misguided/stupid because you are a member of this profession/group/religion." (I cannot tell you how often I have heard that in my lifetime. I get that from two different directions, and I always have to make the calculation of whether it's better just to ignore it, because I'm not going to have all that much to do with that person, or whether I have to poke them into seeing how unspeakably offensive and idiotic that is.)
...when ten thousand of us do the same thing, we do it because we have each decided independently, on our own dime and by our own reasoning, to do that thing.
...Right. Because no lawyer anywhere ever has decided, independently on their own dime and by their own reasoning, that they want to be a lawyer. No member of a religious group has ever decided, independently on their own dime and their own reasoning, that they want to be a member of that religion for what seem to them to be good and sufficient reasoning. No member of any political affiliation has ever decided, independently on their own dime and of their own reasoning, to choose said affiliation. Never, in the history of this country or of humankind, has this ever happened. Ever.
-- 21:31, 16 December 2010 (GMT)
No one "joins" the "gay group" You are absolutely right and that's NOT what I meant. Now I'll try it again.
If you are gay, fine. I don't have a problem with that. (In fact, as far as I'm concerned it probably works in your favor.)
Nor do I think it was a choice or a matter within your control. You were born gay; I was supposed to have been a girl. If I picked on you over that I'd shoot my own foot off.
Nor do I think you are a sinner, nor do I condemn you for being gay in any way. I mean, c'mon, who do you think I am?
But if I get the impression that you are (let's choose a really, really trivial example here) going to a particular club because that's where all the gay people go, as opposed to because that's a club you personally actually like going to, I do have a problem with that.
If I see you voting a particular direction because that is the way you are told that people who are gay should vote (by one interest group or another), that's a problem. If, on the other hand, you have analyzed the issue and you think this vote is in your personal interest or the interest of homosexuals or the general interest of the public or you think it's the right thing to do or you just happen to like the guy you're voting for, all of those are fine reasons. In fact, I don't mind even if you're voting for something for bad reasons - as long as you came up with those reasons on your own.
My problem with groups is twofold.
1) They actively discourage individual thought, and to me the individual is paramount. Everyone should make their own decisions their own way and make their own mistakes, just as I am making my own mistakes rather dramatically right now by continuing this conversation. It is a bad decision, but it is my decision and not some collective's. I fear and loathe the massmind.
2) They magnify the potential for damage. One lawyer prosecuting a bogus product-liability suit to make himself and his client some quick cash at the expense of a large corporation is a nuisance. One hundred thousand lawyers doing it is a massive societal problem.
-- 21:31, 16 December 2010 (GMT)
Iain, I'm sorry I was confusing. Two different types of group have come up in this mammoth thread. Of course you are right about lawyers and such. Some of the groups we have discussed here I object to because of reason #1 above and some I object to because of reason #2. Lawyers would fall under reason #2.
I am depressed that I can't condemn groups without pissing off individuals. As I said before, I don't care about groups but I do care about individuals a great deal. I'm now very upset, but I'm not upset because of any of my comments about groups; I'm upset because of all the humans I've pissed off with this thread. I think if I encountered a group which was full of humans that I know and like, it might be different. But to me groups are automatically composed of strangers, and I'm not even sure I can make the leap of thinking of those strangers as human, not as long as they're clustered together like that where I can't see their faces.
-- 21:37, 16 December 2010 (GMT)
Iain:
I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm not particularly pissed off. I do wonder how you manage to maintain this particular blind spot in human relations, but I'm not pissed off.
-- 21:46, 16 December 2010 (GMT)
Iain, I don't know and - to tell you the truth - that's what's depressing me, making me feel right now like it's hopeless for me to try to interact with the world at all.
Because believe me, I'd recant if I could; I'm now feeling like this is going to continue to endanger friendships and so forth for the rest of my goddamned life. I simply do not see a condemnation of the group as a condemnation of the individual, and while I understand the link you have pointed out (many times), I can't seem to dodge the problem.
To me it's like (forgive the analogy) everyone else insists there is a piece of furniture in the room that I can't see, and sometimes I remember it's there, but eventually, sooner or later, I'll trip over it again, and people are like, "Why do you keep tripping over this footstool?" and I'm like "What @#$! footstool? There is no footstool!"
In short, I give up, and I hope a few people will still manage to like me despite the fact that I apparently hold some unacceptable beliefs.
-- 21:53, 16 December 2010 (GMT)
It's tough to know where to begin with this because your thinking and writing here are uncharacteristically sloppy.
Let's start with Andy, because that's something you could have fixed and should have fixed, and it remains obscure to me why you didn't. To recap, Andy was offended by your statements about lawyers being dishonest because his father was a lawyer. I told you how to fix it at the time without betraying your own beliefs. If I were in your shoes, I'd reach out to him, apologize for hurting his feelings and inadvertently insulting his father. You remain dubious about lawyers, but obviously you have friends in that profession, and if he says his father was a good man, who led a good life and treated people honestly and kindly, you believe him.
Have to change the baby now, but I'll take on your bewildering conflation of groups that one chooses to join (e.g., Democrats or unions) and groups that one has little or no choice over (gay, black).
-- 23:41, 16 December 2010 (GMT)
May I just remind you that there is a big difference between "I disagree," and "I am angry with you"? I disagree with some of your misanthropic tendencies and share others. You are entitled to your opinions, as am I. You don't like to deal with jackasses and salespeople. You are not alone in this, except perhaps in degree of dislike, and your ability to articulate it.
-- 00:09, 17 December 2010 (GMT)
Some of the sloppiness is because this was supposed to be an entry about Salespeople are Evil and if I hadn't put on the three paragraphs at the beginning, very little of this discussion would have happened, so I was caught by surprise.
Nonelvis took me to task for that same conflation, although she did say she figured out what I meant eventually. The problem is that in some cases I am using "group" when I should mean "label," and in other cases when I say "group" I really do mean "group."
Group example: I really do distrust any electrician who is a member of Local 103 until proven innocent. (I have to mute ads for them or their work when they come on the television, and even then I give them the finger.)
Label example: I don't have any problem with one's strong affiliation with Amnesty International, but I do get nervous when that's one of the first things they slip into the conversation, because it makes me think their affiliation there is a far more important part of their identity than it should be (to my mind).
You'll notice I'm avoiding all the really dangerous groups and labels as examples here.
Here is the important thing to remember, and if I'd known this was going to be today's argument, I'd have made it absolutely clear from the beginning:
I HATE EVERYBODY.
I have ten thousand reasons to hate you. Some are legitimate. Some are minor. Some are ridiculous. I have been known to hate Jeopardy! contestants because I don't like their suit or the tone of their voice or their facial expression. I have some reason to hate everyone ... until I learn to like them, which will only happen when I get to know them as an individual. I will always hate first and like later. Everyone in the world is guilty until proven innocent.
The labels that others see as convenient shorthand, I see as a closed box. If you come to me and say "I'm a Democrat," that tells me nothing. It doesn't tell me which of the parts of the many diverse ideological packages that have been tagged "Democrat" at various times you actually subscribe to. It doesn't tell me whether you're an idiot who is just parroting that label, or whether you have taken the time and effort to give the Democratic platform some thought and analysis, and have chosen what bits of it you support carefully. It doesn't tell me whether you are a frothing nutcase whom I should never, ever have a political discussion with under any circumstances. Et cetera. To me, it is essentially lazy and useless.
(And let me make clear: All of this discussion has been about "to me." It has all been personal preference. It has never been about whether those labels or affiliations are useful to anyone else. Just me.)
The problem is, if you start with the lazy label "I'm a Democrat," I may very well get so annoyed that I don't take the time to pry out any of your real views and opinions, and we both go our separate ways without bothering to get to know one another, which is probably not much of a loss for you (since I don't really consider myself to much enrich anyone's life with my company), but which may well have been a loss for me. I'm sure I have missed knowing some brilliant people by refusing to sift through all the tags and labels to get at the real meat. But to me it still beats the alternative, which strikes me as consuming an awful lot of personal overhead.
As for honest-to-god groups, not labels, the problem is that the ones I think are evil as a whole present an instant obstacle to transcend. For example, if you are a union electrician, you may very well be contemptuous of their cronyism and protectionism. You may very well feel that Local 103 is a huge waste of space, and you only bothered to get admitted because you need the work and you felt it would increase your chances of getting jobs. That's acceptable, but the question is, is it worth my time to try to dig deeply enough to find out that you are not part of my stereotype?
I'm sure my stereotypes get in my way; in fact I know they do. But what's keeping me from discarding more of them is that their general usefulness as time-savers seems to keep just barely ahead of their hindrance. Of course, this posits that one does not mind having very few friends. Eight days out of ten, I don't mind. The other two days - well, we won't discuss those.
-- 00:16, 17 December 2010 (GMT)
Corvi: I've traditionally had problems with that in two opposite directions. In one direction, I inflate my rhetoric, so I say "I'm angry" when I mean "I disagree." In the other direction, I am insecure and paranoid, so when my friends say "I disagree," I take that to mean they're angry. Sigh.
-- 00:20, 17 December 2010 (GMT)
Other than lawyers, do you actively and, well, outspokenly, condemn groups to people whom you know belong to and enjoy the group? That sounds like picking a fight, to me. If you honestly don't think less of the individual for having divergent views about said membership, then why does it come up at all? How can you lose a friend if you try to let that particular aspect of their personality just slide?
See, I'm someone who has a really hard time complimenting something I actually hate. "Oh, that dress looks lovely on you" does not roll off of my tongue easily, if I actually despise the whole look. I try to settle for something like "My, that looks to be really well made" or something equally inane, and get off the subject as soon as humanly possible. I don't see why that wouldn't work equally as well with group affiliations as it does with atrocious clothes. I'm not trivializing the groups, just asking why that approach wouldn't, or doesn't, work for you?
If there are plenty of other aspects to this person that you respect or admire, unless they actively flaunt the group angle, or, worse yet, proselytize about it, then why can't you just ignore it? This is just me being nosy.
-- 00:30, 17 December 2010 (GMT)
Bunny: I swear to god it never gets discussed at all anywhere but in this space. I am not so uncouth that I would ever put such prejudices into real live conversation with someone (unless they were an old trusted friend and that was the topic we specifically wanted to discuss). I try never to pick fights ... in the real world.
The conversational examples were just that: examples. What usually actually happens in real world conversations is I silently examine their conversational gambits and how they present themselves, and then I decide whether it is worth my effort to dig deeper, or to smile and extricate myself as politely as possible and then never have voluntary conversation with that person ever again.
Online it's different. I've personally decided that the safest, most rational policy is to say as little as possible online ... everywhere but here. I tend to regard this space here as a safe space to speak my mind. Sometimes that assumption gets me in trouble.
-- 01:06, 17 December 2010 (GMT)
Joy:
Sometimes I really want to run every known battery of psychological tests on you (if I were those kinds of psychologists) and scan you brain and somehow figure out how you get these twisty turny bits to your personality.
But I'm rather fond of you despite what I might sometimes call your ridiculousness.
-- 01:17, 17 December 2010 (GMT)
Oh, I'd say years of social ridicule for my entire childhood, followed by a high school career spent dreading my going home every day because of a verbally and physically abusive stepfather, followed by a painfully late maturity where I struggled with gender dysphoria while trying to catch up a lost decade, all had a lot to do with it.
Since you asked.
[ETA: I'm sorry. That was not meant to sound as harsh as it came out. It was a bad evening and I'm going to go play computer games now.]
-- 01:19, 17 December 2010 (GMT)
Well, it's nice to know that you hate me because I belong to that group of people who read you.
But don't worry, I still like you and will continue to come around and read everything you write.
-- 04:19, 17 December 2010 (GMT)
I'm sorry I got the wrong idea about what you were saying. And I'm really sad to hear that you lost a friend in this space especially. This should be sacrosanct and you should be able to express yourself, here of all places, without fear that someone will disown you over anything you say from the heart. Did Andy tell you he was offended, or did he just sort of disappear? Robert seems to think you could have fixed it, without compromising your principles. You've somehow managed to keep Robert around, despite your diatribes about lawyers in general. It's hard to believe someone as eloquent as you are couldn't find the words to make it right. Did you know Andy IRL?
See? I told you I was nosy. I don't mean to poke a bruise. But I have very, very few close friends, online or anywhere else, one of whom is in the process of dying of cancer. So I feel a special pain when I hear about your loss.
-- 07:13, 17 December 2010 (GMT)
OK, to resume, let's start with the definition of "group." At its broadest, "group" simply means a set around which one can draw a line and label the contents. It can be anything: "women" "red-haired people" "gay" "Democrat" "union member" "Patriots fan" "Glenn Beck fan." If you think about it, really any adjective can be used to define a group in the broadest sense. So when you say you mistrust groups, I doubt you mean it in such a broad term -- I doubt you would say you mistrust "red-haired people" (or substitute any other much more controversial genetic characteristic that would get one labelled a "bigot" were one to say it).
OK, so then the next level of "group," as I see it, is associational groups related to a genetic commonality. You write, "But if I get the impression that you are . . . going to a particular club because that's where all the gay people go, as opposed to because that's a club you personally actually like going to, I do have a problem with that." First, I think that's a bit of a strawman argument. Sure, if one does things one doesn't like simply because it's the "in" thing to do in the eyes of some group that one wants to identify with, yes, that's pathetic, like buying a poodle skirt you hate because all the Heathers in the senior class wear poodle skirts. But that's not the fault of the group, which presumably genuinely likes this hypothetical club; it's the fault of the weak-willed individual.
Let me make your hypothetical a bit harder: Suppose the person actually does like the club, but only because it is a gay-friendly environment and that people he likes and wants to know go there? If it weren't a "gay club," he wouldn't be interested. Is this bad, and if so, why?
Another strawman argument is your line about "if you start with the lazy label 'I'm a Democrat' . . . ." Have you ever been introduced to someone who tells you he is a Democrat in his first sentence and provides no other information? If such a person existed, I agree; I'd think he was a nut and would back away slowly. "I'm a Democrat," is just one datum. But I tell you, it's a useful one to me, just as "I'm a Republican," "I'm a Communist," "I'm Right-to-Life party member," are all very useful bits of information for me to have about someone I'm deciding whether and how to deal with.
OK, let's ratchet it up one more. Now we have an associational group -- NAACP, Lambda, NOW -- that is created to obtain civil rights (often by using, gasp, lawyers). Do you really think the civil rights that have been wrested from the white, male power structure would have occurred without these groups?
I do understand your point about group-think. Moreover, at a certain point, groups formed to obtain a result change their focus to self-perpetuation. And when groups become large enough and successful enough, the corrupting influence of power arrives. All of those things are bad, and they are something to keep in mind in dealing with groups. But to lump all "groups" as presumptively bad, with the opportunity to rebut that presumption is as foolish as making presumptions about "union members" or "lawyers" or "gays," and saying, "Oh, but I didn't mean you," or "Oh, but I'll let an individual have the opportunity to rebut the presumption," doesn't relieve the foolishness. It's ok to hate Local 103 because it unfairly excluded you -- that's a legitimate gripe. It's not ok to hate Local 103 simply because it's a group.
Moreover, if it's ok to do that with your prejudices (e.g., being gay works in someone's favor in your eyes), then it's ok for Archie Bunker to have *his* prejudices -- "Oh, I don't mean you Lionel. You're one of the good ones."
I think on the original lawyer thread I demonstrated that you didn't really believe what you were saying -- you ended up agreeing with examples I gave. So I don't feel a need to redo it now. But you should reach out to Andy and try to heal that. He apparently doesn't have the thick skin I do, and you hurt his feelings.
-- 07:17, 17 December 2010 (GMT)
Kindly do not attempt to dispel my protective shields with logic.
OK, look, you're right, or at least mostly right. While I don't think it is correct to say that I "don't really believe what I'm saying," I will admit that I do dial up the rhetoric quite a bit. I believe what I'm saying but I don't believe it very strongly.
You know how there's a military tactic of putting up an expendable line of defense, so that when enemies attack it, you lose that line, but you have a better idea of the strength of the enemy? I think it's actually a lot closer to that.
I'm justifiably ashamed of my many biases, and I feel that if I were truly a good person I wouldn't have any ... but in general I also don't want to shed them, because I like the protective posture. It's so much safer to distrust everyone first and force them to prove themselves to me, even if that means very few people want to jump over all the hurdles I place in their way.
You don't imagine this is news to me, I hope: I was first called out on this, gently, by a very good friend when I was, I dunno, seventeen or eighteen. That was just one of many pieces of good advice she gave me (I have never told her that she was probably the key reason I survived high school), and contrary to what you might believe, I haven't ignored it; it's just very hard, particularly in times of depression or stress, not to revert.
Last night on the walk home from work I came very close to not going home. It was the strongest temptation to go live in a cave and never interact with another human again that I've felt in, I don't know, twenty years? And yet it's still so very tempting - the idea of never trusting anyone and thus making it harder for the world to screw me over in its many inevitable ways.
I'm not going to reach out to Andy for three reasons 1) Knowing what I do of his personality, I feel he wouldn't be satisfied with anything less than a genuine change in my opinions here, and I can't just change those on a whim; 2) I feel like that ship has sailed and it's too late to fix things; 3) In view of events like these, it's probably not a good idea for someone who has a thin skin to associate with me anyway.
-- 16:06, 17 December 2010 (GMT)
I don't know Andy at all except from his comments here. I do gather he is important to you. I *mostly* trust your analysis of the situation, so I'll only say *consider* this. When I fuck up -- and, hey, you fucked up here -- I apologize and try my best to fix it. It doesn't always work, and I've lost people despite my best efforts to remediate the problem. My ignorant gut tells me that the issue with him is not your true beliefs (even in their rhetorically enhanced form), but how you expressed them. Try the words I've suggested verbatim. If he still blows you off, yes, it will hurt you all over again, but you can go forward knowning you did the menschly thing instead of taking easier route of leaving it behind.
"so that when enemies attack it, you lose that line" I tell you three times: We are not your enemies. *We* are not your enemies. WE are NOT your enemies.
P.S. FWIW, I can't stand most salespeople, too.
-- 17:06, 17 December 2010 (GMT)
Joy:
I hope you read my last comment the way it was meant - with affection, and not derision. And I know about many of the factors you mention, I am just the scientist who wants to know what neural connections were affected/moved in what ways.
-- 19:44, 17 December 2010 (GMT)
Nonelvis:
I know you're doing this because you think it's a job that you can bluff your way through and you don't have to come home smelling of fry grease every night.
Or it's the job you have available to you. Not everyone can pick and choose what they do, especially in this economy, and it seems cruel and, dare I say it, elitist to look down on people for taking a job that's the difference between paying their rent or not.
Look, I've worked retail, and I'd do it again if I had to. It wouldn't be my first choice of job anymore, largely because I can make a lot more money doing what I do now. But there's nothing wrong or shameful about working retail, and I enjoyed my job at the time. (I doubt very much that I'd enjoy working on commission, but that's a separate problem.)
-- 18:46, 16 December 2010 (GMT)